


decisively and more forthrightly

by emptyricebowl



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Like so much, M/M, all the president's men!au, anachronisms? maybe., banter!!!, drabble—>chaptered fic, gratuitous cigarette smoking, no beta we die like men, the washington post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23372380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emptyricebowl/pseuds/emptyricebowl
Summary: "Jesus, you'd think with a degree in Literature from Harvard your syntax would make more sense than this steaming pile of dogshit.""Ouch, Lieb." Webster monotoned. From the muffled sound of his voice, he was probably still stuffing potato chips in his mouth. Was Joe surprised in the slightest by his lack of table manners? No. Was he surprised that Webster was lying inert on his cluttered mattress? No. Selective indolence was in his nature. He was bred on green lawns and tennis clubs.
Relationships: Joseph Liebgott/David Kenyon Webster
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> webgott shenanigans but it's the 70s and they're the two reporters who cracked watergate
> 
> (title is a quote from richard nixon abt aforementioned scandal)

"Jesus, you'd think with a degree in Literature from Harvard your syntax would make more sense than this steaming pile of dogshit."

"Ouch, Lieb." Webster monotoned. From the muffled sound of his voice, he was probably still stuffing potato chips in his mouth. Was Liebgott surprised in the slightest by his lack of table manners? No. Was he surprised that Webster was lying inert on his cluttered mattress? No. Selective indolence was in his nature. He was bred on green lawns and tennis clubs. 

Liebgott twisted around in his chair. "I mean, c'mon. What would you do if I wasn't here to clean it up? You didn't even mention Ziegler's name until the third paragraph, and he's the subject of the story."

"I didn't go back over it."

"You—you didn't go back over it?" Liebgott echoed, incredulous. "You mean to tell me you didn't even read over this before you gave it to me?"

Webster shot him a glance nothing short of shameless. 

"You're a real piece of work," Liebgott raked a hand through his hair and shook another cigarette from his pack. There was a cup of lukewarm coffee on the table next to the typewriter, which he downed hastily, despite the lack of flavor. The deadline was tomorrow morning, and it would be an understatement if he said he had a lot of work left to do.

“I don’t even know if this is salvageable.” 

“Deadline’s tomorrow morning,” Webster said, helpfully. 

“I feel like we’re beating a dead horse. I swear I’ve written more about Watergate than any other kind of report in the entirety of my career.” 

“We can’t let  _ the Times _ snatch up one of our stories. Winters will have our asses if even a single one of them ends up being a reprint."

" _ Webgott, you had better find someone to go on the record for this _ ." Liebgott imitated the mantra of their editor-in-chief. 

Webster raised an eyebrow. "At this rate, you're almost as good as Luz. But that's because he's got his sports column as a security blanket. No one ever gets onto him cause his pieces are so damn boring."

"What, you don't like sports, Web? That's shocking.”

"It's—.”

"Yeah, yeah. I know. It's primitive. It's unsophisticated. Yada yada. You’re like a broken record."

"Remind me again how a cabbie from San Francisco and a Harvard graduate ever ended up at the same post..."

"A newspaper is a meritocracy, asshole."

“Figures.” 

Webster slumped back down on the mattress and closed his eyes. Liebgott eyed him for a moment, unimpressed, before returning to the keys. Funny, he mused, how Webster had a real sense of exigency until it came to the grunt work. 

"This is slave labor," Liebgott said under his breath. The rapid clicking of the typewriter was too loud; he hadn't noticed Webster's approach until the other was right behind him. 

“Jesus!" Liebgott startled, leaning against the unexpected presence of Webster's hand on the back of the chair. 

"Slave labor?" Webster smiled in that patronizing way of his. "I hardly forced you to be here."

"Huh, then maybe I should go since you seem to have it all figured out." Liebgott rose to his feet, stuffing his nicotine into his shirt pocket. 

Webster raised his hands in surrender. “I'm kidding. Please don't go."

"That's what I thought.  _ Hardly forced me to be here _ , huh? Then what  _ am _ I here for? Ungrateful bastard." Liebgott sat back down, grasping one of his pens from the desk to gnaw on the cap angrily. "Who are you kidding, when you don't know shit from Shinola?” 

"You're pissy today.” 

"Yeah, well, keep this between you and me, but there's this putz who just asked me to completely redraft his stream-of-consciousness, shitass excuse of a story."

"Tell him to pay you," Webster suggested, the warmth on his face unapologetic, his words intentionally artless. "I'm sure he's charitable." He placed his hands on Liebgott's shoulders. Liebgott stiffened but didn’t shrug him off. 

"That's what you think. He lives in a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Washington, living off a nine-month-old salary from _ the Post _ . What's more, he's incredibly co-dependent."

"Sounds charming."

"You don't know the half of it..." Liebgott trailed off, suddenly lost in thought. Right—he hadn’t realized he was this worked up. Maybe it was the stress. Yeah. It was probably stress. Sometimes when he thought about the fact that they’d dismantled almost the entirety of the GOP in the span of a month, he got this horrible feeling that it was all too good to be true. The fame, or the notoriety, the press—the press for the press, who knew. 

He regretted being pushy. He regretted ever looking over the editor’s shoulder and making the executive (haha) decision to rewrite Webster’s piece on the Watergate burglar employed as a security coordinator for the President’s re-election committee. He wished Webster had been a little more upset with him, for being a nosy, holier-than-thou little shit. Sure, he had more experience and certainly was a helluva’ better writer, but his ego was unpardonable... Liebgott remembered with clarity the way he told Webster, steadfast, almost petulant, that his version was better. As his eyes skimmed the first few pages of the revised version, the irritation in Webster’s face had melted away. It’s better, he said, matter-of-fact. The rest was history. Liebgott remained wrapped up in the ordeal until president Nixon himself was standing there sweating at the bar. As Liebgott had watched the trial through the electric blue haze of the television screen, he had the distant thought that this had all been a mistake. 

“You alright?” 

“I was just thinking maybe I should’ve kept doing my investigative series.” Liebgott drew further in on himself, his shoulders hunched and teeth grinding together. As if on cue, Webster’s hands on his shoulders began kneading gently. Liebgott went still, allowing that unpleasant tightness in his back to be rubbed out of him. 

“You’re so tense.” 

“Sounds like a line from a bad porno,” Liebgott said, but his voice was quiet and breathy and clearly affected. “God, that feels...”’

“Good?” 

Liebgott nodded, his lips pressing together in a thin line. His hands were splayed out on his knees. The pen he’d chewed up abandoned on the edge of his chair. 

“I hope you’re not actually thinking about going back to the classical music reviews.” 

A short, wry laugh. “That was a one-time thing.” 

“It should stay that way.” 

“Mm...hm?” Liebgott was distracted by Webster’s hands making him feel like everything was melting away. 

“I’m serious, Lieb. You know about the rumor about me at work, that English isn’t my first language.”

“Thought it was...dyslexia..?”

“All the same. I need you. We’re a team. A unit. Honestly, I think I would’ve gone insane if we hadn’t been paired up for this story. You’re clever, and a fast-talker. I don’t think I would have ever have gotten this far if I’d been working on my own. And the byline is infamous: David Kenyon Webster and Joseph Liebgott. You think we’d even be recognized if it wasn’t in tandem?” 

“No way, Jose.” 

Webster paused, glancing down at the other fellow who was currently too blissed out to make heads or tails of what was being said to him. “And I’m monologuing for nothing.” 

Liebgott’s head tilted back. His eyes flickered open, curious as to why the feeling of pleasure coursing through his body had suddenly stopped. Webster was looking down at him. A small hard line appeared in the furrow of his brow. 

“Why’d you stop?” 

“Because you’re not listening.” 

“I never knew you were so good with your hands. Do you treat all the chicks like this, or am I special?” 

“That was a non-sequitur.” 

“Okay, Harvard.” 

Webster’s green eyes flashed with annoyance. He flicked the back of Liebgott’s skull with his fingers and retreated to his mattress. 

“Come back.” Liebgott sulked.

“Maybe when you’re done with that report,” Webster replied, popping a potato chip into his mouth. That shit-eating grin was on his face again, clearly, he was getting a kick out of Liebgott’s state of despair and was unafraid to exploit it.

“Manipulative bastard.” 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

“Nine months.” 

Webster glanced up from his mattress (as Liebgott called it)/futon (as Webster called it—the bohemian jerk-off) with a curious frown on his face. 

“Nine months is all it takes for you to be given the prerogative for an investigative series like this. I’ve been doing investigative journalism for years. And then a hot-shot like you comes in, and all of a sudden we’re winning a Pulitzer and signing a book contract. Can you believe it?” 

Webster shrugged, his sea-glass green eyes sliding listlessly over a few discarded newspaper stories from their printing cohort: the _New York Times_. “I think that’s an oversimplification, but sure.” 

_“Sure?”_

“Yeah, _sure_. I don’t even want to think about entertaining this fit you’re about to have over some meaningless bullshit.”

“I’m just curious,” Liebgott said through his teeth. “What exact kind of human you have to overcome such barriers as status, rank, and precedence at a newspaper. Since, in comparison to almost everyone employed at the _Post_ except for the interns, you’re practically a toddler.” 

Webster leveled at him. “ _You’re_ practically a toddler.”

“Four years—.” 

“Yeah, hard work and unstinting effort, probably too many over-nighters, the development of numerable addictions to various harmful substances - you can save it for the award ceremony speech.”

Liebgott raked his fingers through his hair, he tried to think of something other than violent, uncontrollable anger. Something about Webster always brought out the worst in him. He had the vague notion he would have made a better soldier, rather than a journalist. At least the former would allow him to empty his brain of thoughts, use his temper instead of being forced to pacify it.

“If you know then you know why it bugs me.” 

“I’m not trying to say that your entire career is undermined by what has transpired in the last few weeks, which I would undoubtedly consider extenuating circumstances to your complaint about my ostensible lack of qualification, but that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. I lived through the same shit as you, condensed into a smaller period of time.”

Liebgott’s earlier suspicion confirmed. He’d be better equipped to handle situations like this with a ten-gauge double-barreled shotgun. 

“You think so?” 

“What can I say? I suck out all the marrow of life.” 

Liebgott was silent for a moment. “That’s some pretty rotten marrow.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

“I didn’t mean to sound spiteful. It’s just recently some people have been talking, and it came to my attention that everything seems to have just fallen into your lap.” 

Webster frowned. “What does that mean?” 

“Well—you graduated from Harvard, right?” 

“That’s right.” 

“Well...” Liebgott trailed off, not sure of the point he had intended to make. “Well, I was just wondering about the pieces you submitted, you know. When you got the interview for the _Post_. It’s for strictly research purposes. You’re not the only one I asked.” 

“I do - but, I won’t let you see them unless you agree not to ridicule me like you usually do.” 

“Of course, I won’t.” Liebgott held up his hand in a gesture that vaguely resembled a gang sign. “Scout’s honor.” 

Webster kept his documents in neat filing cabinets, pristine like the rest of his apartment, not a single folder or leaf of paper out of order. It was arranged with such a degree of complication that even a cryptographer would get a headache—typical of Webster, who Liebgott surmised to be some kind of a high-functioning sociopath. Beneath all the glitz and glamor of being the reporter who cracked Watergate, Liebgott suspected Webster was afflicted by several serious neurological conditions, all of which rendered him: incapable of being not an asshole, compulsively tidy, and prone to long periods of pensive sadness where he quoted authors Liebgott had never heard of with less shame than that spineless dog they’d once called the president of the United States of America. 

“Don’t read that one. I wrote it in college.” Webster smacked his palm down onto the paper as if to refute it. His voice suggested embarrassment.

Liebgott was surprised at having the paper knocked out of his grip. He was still considering it, tasting the words, putting himself into Webster’s brain for a bit and seeing the world through a self-proclaimed intellectual’s lens. He didn’t think there were people who actually devoted time to this stuff. But, then again, Liebgott pictured Webster as one of those sorts who wrote scholarly articles for an academic journal. Webster was an academic by definition. It might have been because Liebgott had never glimpsed Webster’s identity in a palpable way, it had only ever been through Webster’s innate lack of humility and the occasional lapse into what Liebgott liked to think of as “deep philosophical rumination.” 

“Why can’t I see it?” 

“Because I sound stupid.” 

“Lordy. I’ll tell you, Web, the one thing you aren’t is stupid.” 

Webster chewed on his bottom lip, shooting Liebgott a look that was a mixture of pain and gratitude. “I was just trying to sound smart, I didn’t actually know what I was talking about.”

“It sounded like you knew what you were talking about to me.” 

”An acute lack of sophistication, more like.” 

“I couldn’t write anything like that.” Liebgott raised an eyebrow challengingly. “So, you’re insulting me?” 

“What? No.” Webster scoffed. “And furthermore, it’s not that you couldn’t write anything like that. It’s that you wouldn’t.” 

“Art history’s for schmucks,” Liebgott affirmed, and had the decency to look sheepish. 

“Don’t you have a report you could be writing? Instead of going through my old manuscripts.” 

“Old manuscripts? It’s shit, Webster, call it shit.” 

“Instead of going through my shit.”

“There you go.” Liebgott paused. “And the answer’s no, by the way.” He snatched the paper back from Webster and hurried over to the opposite side of the room where the dining room table was located. He pulled out a chair and a cigarette and mulled over young Webster’s “speculation.” 

“Are truths not already objective?” Liebgott asked, glancing over the first paragraph and spotting a few errors already. Not that that was surprising either; Webster’s quality of writing was not as pristine as his quality of life. 

Webster frowned contemplatively. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I don’t know if I was just unaware that it was redundant or genuinely making a point of saying that the idea of truth in itself is subjective.” 

“Pretty sure you weren’t that aware. Why even write the essay, then?” 

“I might have been insincerely.” 

“What? Insincerely aware that truth is subjective?” 

“Yes, and that’s because anyone can say anything is subjective and get away with sounding like they’re intelligent and able to discern the nuances of individual reality.” 

“You’re talking way over my head here.” 

Webster sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t get me started on this stuff. It’s difficult for me to accommodate someone with half the intellectual capacity.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“I’m just being honest.” 

“Oh sure, Web, because being honest and being an asshole are non-mutually exclusive.” 

“Can we go back to making fun of me as a child?” 

_“A child?”_

“Yeah. I was twelve when I wrote that.” 

Liebgott stared.

“I’m joking.”

“Do you enjoy being an absolute dickbag? Oh, wait, I already know the answer to that.” Liebgott tsked. “For what it’s worth when I was twelve I was playing in the mud and burning ants alive under a magnifying glass.” 

“That sounds like your healthy, average American boy’s childhood.”

“And let me guess, you, David Kenyon Webster, two first names because your parents couldn’t decide which was more pretentious, had an above-average childhood, spending most of your time at the country club, probably learning how to be a good capitalist who maintains the circle-jerk of elitism and societal domination, while lounging comfortably on the backs of hard-working Americans, despite the spoon jammed so far up your tight asshole you can taste the silver.” 

Webster rubbed the back of his neck, averting his gaze to study the dubious mustard-yellow stain on the far wall. After a moment of contemplation, he spoke. “That’s not how the saying goes?” 

“Sue me.” Liebgott puffed. He was glad Webster did not sound angry. He knew the outburst was largely uncalled-for, stemming from the deeply-rooted frustration he had with himself and his own incompetence. Even if unintentional, Webster sometimes made Liebgott feel as lamebrained as James McCord’s retarded daughter. 

“I don’t know why you think I’m some kind of a stuck-up, rich asshole. My family is middle-class at best. Never been high up enough in the tax bracket to be admitted to a country club.” 

“I guess I’ve just been listening to too much of the workroom gossip.” 

“They say things about me? Jesus. No wonder. Luz asked me the other day if I’d have trouble proofreading because of my dyslexia.” 

Liebgott frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?” 

“I’ve told you this before. I don’t have dyslexia.” 

“Your syntax begs to differ.” 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“You’re the one who’s always begging me to edit it? You want honesty. I present you with honesty.” 

Webster rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Every time I try to have a civil conversation with you. It’s like you get a kick out of turning everything into an argument.” 

“Oh, so it’s my fault you’re sensitive?” 

“No.” Webster blinked rapidly. “ _Sensitive?_ You think I’m sensitive?” 

“You majored in English Literature at Harvard. That’s what me and everyone else have to go off of in terms of impressions. That, and your face is…”

“My face is what?”

“I don’t know - I can’t really put my finger on it. You just look like you read Lord Byron beneath the pale moonlight.” 

Webster cast a particularly solemn glance out of the window, “I don’t know what I could get out of you saying that aside from being mildly appreciative of the fact that you know Byron.” 

“Know is a strong word. We’re not that familiar.” 

“Oh right, I forgot your library is limited to pulp fiction and comic strips.” 

Liebgott scoff-gasped, his lips curling into a surprised smile. “You’re just as bad.” 

“Yes, I guess so. Does it matter? When this conversation is just fodder for my poetry.” 

“You write poetry?” 

“Didn’t they mention it in the workroom?” 

“No.”

“That’s probably because nothing they say in there is true.” Webster sighed, leaning the back of his head against the wall and shutting his eyes. “I don’t write poetry.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

Webster snorted.

“No. Listen, look. I really am. This conversation is proof enough that I don’t know anything about you. Let’s just start over, okay? Without prejudice.” 

“I thought civility was against your nature.” 

Liebgott's eyes slanted momentarily toward the ceiling. “You better be glad I’m sitting over here because I’m just itching to stick one on you.” 

“Like I said.” 

“I can be civil. We can have a civil conversation. As long as you’re not acting like an insufferable fuckweasel.” 

“Oh?” Webster smiled a supercilious smile. “Insufferable? That’s a big word for you.” 

Liebgott leaped to his feet, the sound of the chair raking against the ground caused Webster’s eyes to flicker open, but was not enough to wipe the arrogant ass smile off his face. 

Liebgott marched over to Webster in three short steps. The apartment was small by virtue of Webster’s paltry earnings from the _Post_ and because the cost of living in the nation’s capital was dreadfully high. 

Webster looked up at Liebgott from where he sat with his legs crisscrossed on the mattress. His eyebrows were raised expectantly, which only made Liebgott angrier. He sunk his teeth into the tip of his tongue and counted to ten. Webster’s imperturbable composure was jarring and caused Liebgott to question why he had even reacted in the first place. 

“C’mon, Lieb, let me have it.” 

That was it. It clicked for Liebgott like a lever was pulled in his brain and everything just slotted into place. He took a step back. Paused for a moment. Then: 

“Alright. You win.” 

Liebgott settled onto the floor adjacent to Webster's mattress, schooling his face into perfect dispassion. 

“Win what?” 

“This—this psychological game you’re playing.” 

“Christ. I don’t have a single fucking clue what you’re talking about. First, you’re complimenting me by saying I’m smart. Then, I’m an asshole. Then, you’re criticizing my upbringing in a snobby, white, upper-class family, of which only the fact that my family _is_ white holds out. Then, you’re apologizing for being prejudiced, then, we’re back to square one and I’m a fuckweasel. And at this point, I don’t even know what you’re mad at anymore. Your actions and your words are ambivalent, if anyone is playing the psychological game, it’s you.” 

Liebgott extracted a cigarette from the pack he kept in his shirt pocket, while carefully averting his gaze, as his face was flushed, but this time it was not from anger or frustration. “I said you win, didn’t I?” 

“I don’t want to win anything. I just want to have some real communication here.” 

“We are communicating.” Liebgott took a drag of his cigarette. “And no, wait a minute, am I supposed to just pretend like half of what you’ve said tonight hasn’t been condescending and derisive? Please resist the urge to say that those are big words. I went to college too.” 

“That was the most indirect way to show that I’m bothered by the fact that your opinion of me is based purely on notions presented by completely unsubstantiated rumors and what—outward appearance? I could’ve thrown a fit too, but I restrained myself.” 

“Hey, careful with your words. I didn’t throw a fit.” 

“I think that’s the fundamental issue here—being too careless with our words.” 

Liebgott snorted. “Good call.”

“ _And_ being too facetious.” 

“I can’t be honest without offending you. You’re more sensitive than my dick after the third jack-off session of the night.”

Webster grimaced. “That’s unsustainable.” 

“You couldn’t handle honesty. You’d cry yourself to sleep, and I don’t want that weighing down my conscience.” 

“Pot. Kettle. Black.” 

“How?” 

Webster scoffed, rubbing at his temple with his index finger. “Don’t kid yourself, Lieb. If I told you what I know you’re invariably thinking you’d probably blow a damn fuse.” 

“And what is that?” Liebgott snapped. He was made aware of how the comment filled him with nervous, instinctive dread. 

“I don’t agree with it, saying it aloud is pointless.”

Liebgott’s voice warbled like a tropical bird. “Agree with _what_ , Webster?” 

“You feel overshadowed by me.” 

Liebgott’s mouth fell open, surprised for the second time this evening at Webster’s insolence, although he had asked for it. He heard a sound like the roar of an express train in his ears, thunderous and distant, but swelling, threatening to explode out of him in the form of a fist. He tried his best to crush the feeling down, sitting there for a moment—white and trembling. 

“What the in the ever-living _fuck_ are you talking about?” 

Webster released an impatient sigh. “Oh, come on, Lieb. You’re so obvious. There’s no other explanation for - for the way you act when you think I don’t notice.”

Liebgott’s cigarette was burning down to a stub in his fingers. He was staring past Webster, at the ant crawling on the window sill. “How do I act when I think you don’t notice, Webster?”

“Well, for starters, there’s the fact that you intervened - no, got involved in the first place. Not that I don’t appreciate it. Your help has been invaluable to me and I don’t think this investigation would have made it this far without you - but, you just elbowed your way into working with me, without taking no for an answer. And also, you don’t think I know, but I can _see_ your beady little eyes from behind that…” Webster motioned emphatically with his hand. “ _Beam_ . Watching me, like you’re going to gut me like a pig. And from there, you’ll write a fantastic story about how CREEP arranged for my “disappearance” all just to prove you don’t need me. And there’s the fact that you’re always _here_. Almost every day, you’re in my apartment. It makes me feel like you’re on a reconnaissance mission or something, trying to find out all my dirty little secrets. No one can spend that much time around another human being without getting sick of them.”

Liebgott stretched out to the desk pushed up against the wall and flattened the end of his cigarette in the ashtray. “Has it ever occurred to you, David Kenyon Webster, in your infinite wisdom, as one of Harvard University’s most esteemed graduates, and as someone with preternatural intelligence that a community college drop-out like myself can hardly fathom,” Liebgott swiped the remnants of the cigarette on the front of his pants. “That I may actually _like_ being around you?”

…

“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.” 

“Of course not, because you’re a mean and selfish bastard.” Liebgott smiled wryly. “Well, now you can rest easy, pal. Now that you know I’m not planning on chopping you into little bits and chucking your body over the side of the 11th street bridge.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re always staring at me.”

Liebgott jabbed a finger in Webster’s direction. “Right. Now that you mention it, what the hell is your problem? _Beady little eyes?_ What am I, a sewer rat? You couldn’t think of a nicer way to describe my eyes? Which, by the way, are abso-fucking-lutely sublime. These are my ma’s eyes. So, you’re insulting my mother." 

"Sorry." Webster replied, but he seemed distracted. "There was that one time you vouched for me in front of Winters too...and Nixon. The other one, not the president. I don't think I've ever seen you go out on a limb for someone like that." 

"Wasn't it the other day when you were getting all sentimental about us? Can't have imagined it. Those moments are rare. And now you're acting as if I maneuvered my way into this. Without me _intervening_ this little ship made of wax would have sunk." 

"You also talk incessantly. When I was a kid I read in a magazine that..."

"Blow me." 

“Oh my God,” Webster exclaimed as if stumbling onto some kind of revelation. He looked at Liebgott for a moment, as if trying to make out something he couldn’t quite see. His tongue slipped between his teeth. His eyes narrowed. He snorted inaudibly, casting his gaze to the wall with a disbelieving look in his eyes. “Oh my God.” 

“What?” Liebgott snapped. For the second time this evening, he felt dread bury itself deep in his chest. 

Webster turned to him, his head tilted back and a partial smirk on his lips. “You have a crush on me.” 

That was it. Matter-of-fact. No time for Liebgott to process it really, the gravity, the way he would have reacted in a situation where he could properly prepare himself. 

“Crush?” Liebgott let out a short, scornful laugh. “What is this, elementary school?” 

“You have a _crush_ \- on _me_.” 

“For Pete’s sake, you might as well say it again. No, go ahead, say it one more time—for posterity.”

Webster flopped down onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling in revel. “You have a crush on me.” 

Liebgott shook his head at the floor. “Jesus fucking Christ...this is why nobody ever tells you anything, Webster. You’re like a god-damned teenage girl.” 

“How long?”

“Huh?”

“How long have you liked me?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, exactly three weeks, four days, nine hours, and thirty-five seconds. It’s right here, right where I carved it into my skin with a vegetable knife.”

Webster’s head turned toward Liebgott as the latter yanked up his sleeve pointedly. Of course, there was nothing on his arm. 

“I don’t know how long,” Liebgott tugged his sleeve back down. “It just sort of happened.” 

“Why?”

“Jesus. I feel like I’m on trial.” 

“I’m just trying to understand.” 

“Well, try a little less hard. You’ll burst a vein.”

“Joe. Seriously.” 

Liebgott stiffened at the usage of his real name, but he crushed the feeling down almost immediately in favor of changing the subject. “Let’s just go back to you thinking I think I’m in any way inferior to you. That was hilarious, and I need the comedic relief right now. You? Overshadow me? You might be a few centimetres taller than me, but there’s a reason the byline is Joseph Liebgott and David Kenyon Webster.” 

“It’s more than a few centimetres.” Webster frowned. “And that isn’t the byline.”

“I don’t want to hear your criticism unless it’s constructive and directed at my writing. Speaking of, I have a report to finish.” 

Webster’s frown deepened. “The first time you have ever elected to choose work over running your mouth. And it’s when we should be talking. We should talk about this, Lieb.” 

“Why should we?” 

“Because we’re adults. Adults talk about their feelings. They don’t bury them, or mask them behind a pretense of contempt.” 

“Common misconception.” Liebgott lit another cigarette. “Now shut up and let me work.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
